Highly skilled migrants contribute with tacit skills important for multiple organizational processes
A new article in The International Journal of Human Resource Management shows how internationally mobile specialists draw on informal competences i.e. ‘tacit skills’ that strengthen five key organizational processes: business development, collaboration, cross-unit knowledge flows, communication and inclusion.
The article demonstrates that highly skilled migrants contribute far beyond their formal qualifications. Building on Polanyi’s concept of tacit knowledge, the study shows how experience-based and embodied capabilities, developed through international mobility, are activated in everyday work. These informal competences support five central organisational processes: expanding business opportunities, sustaining effective collaboration, enabling cross-unit knowledge sharing, bridging linguistic and cultural gaps, and identifying inclusion blind spots.
Based on 46 qualitative interviews with highly skilled migrants in STEM functions in leading multinational companies in Denmark, the authors show that these contributions are best understood not as immediate performance outcomes but as the building of sociocultural intelligence, improved knowledge management, and enhanced competitiveness. The article concludes that HR practices such as recruitment, appraisal, and development should move beyond narrow, merit-based definitions of expertise and systematically recognise and support these informal competences.
Read the full article 'Beyond formal skills: the informal contributions of highly skilled migrants to organizational processes' by Miguel Morillas and Nana Wesley Hansen, published in The International Journal of Human Resource Management.